Falcons: Technology vs Nature

Hello everyone!

The idea of this post was initiated in comments for @janton's post about eagle hunting fest in Mongolia. But the whole story for me started a year ago on my April trip to the north of Ukraine, a mysterious land of woods and swamps. If you new to my blog, you may take a quick look at my old posts about it with beautiful shots at the bottom.

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Falcons, hawks, eagles

They are all predator birds. And despite of that, the main predator is a human. Earlier these birds were used for hunting and getting food, and now it is a great sport in a better case, in the worse it just senseless cruelty and poaching.

So, Polissia reserve has a very interesting museum with plenty of "exhibits" that were found and brought right from the wood. The director told us a lot of interesting stories and facts, but one of them surprised me most of all. Poachers hunt falcons to smuggle them out of Ukraine to Arab Emirates, where they can bring a pretty penny on the black market.

My first question was - what for are falcons from our woods in an Arabian sands?

A Symbol of a Country

In United Arab Emirates and Middle Eastern culture falconry still are very popular. I found out that they are a national pride and a central part of their traditions and heritage. There are many training schools for falcons, besides nomads have long used falcons to hunt for food, as well as our ancestor did.

As the time passed by, things have changed, and falconry became available only for the wealthiest. But in the early 2000s, Crown Prince Sheikh Hamdan bin Mohammed bin Rashid al Maktoum introduced falcon racing, and hunting was banned to protect spicies like houbara bustards. Thus, it became a sport that is accessible to the average Emiratis who became more wealthy as well. There are falcon malls and clinics, falcon farms and training schools.

^{© asalkhaimahtourism.com}

A Bird with own Passport

Did you know that UAE national passport has an image of Falcon? Furthermore, falcons get issued their very own forest-green passports. Falconers, who train their falcons (by the way, it is very very costly) can sell the top of them (the winners of a Cup) for hundreds of thousands of dollars up to million. And the own falcon's passport is to protect them from being stolen.

The passport also prove that the bird is not wild, as only bred falcons can participate in races.

From a school to the winner

The best time in falconry is about 15 seconds for 400 m. To achieve such a cool result both a trainer and a bird can only via great efforts. Usually, birds are being trained before dawn and in the evening during hunting and racing season. Also, falcons are still trained for hunting too, but it is more about endurance, while racing is like a sprint.

As the hunting is forbidden in UAE, it is still available abroad, in countries like Pakistan, Iraq, Sudan, Morocco or Saudi Arabia.

Nowadays, a busy season for falcon trainers starts in October, they train hawks and falcons to race at hundreds of miles an hour. There are several races from October to March, but the most prestigious is the national contest called The President's Cup. The fastest falcons can win up to $7 million in prizes, or a car for its trainer. Not bad at all!

The trainers also involve their sons to falconry. Boys are taught to love these gorgeous birds from the age of 3 or even 2 years old.

Technology vs Nature

The less expensive Bedouin traditional method of training is a pigeon as a lure on a rope. Now falcon trainers can use drones and RC planes to train the birds. The lure with a falcon’s food is attached to the base of the fuselage. Chasing the drone is better exercise for a bird, and much easier for a trainer, lol. I think it is one more reason why it is so expensive hobby. Also, a bird usually has small GPS transmitter to track it.

Drones that are used in training process, later can become a target for a bird. Not only Arab Sheikhs use trained hawks and falcons for a private security purposes and protection from un-invented drones.

"Guard From Above" is the first company in the world (situated in the Hague, Netherlands) to use Birds of Prey to intercept hostile drones. Started in 2013, now they collaborate with Dutch National Police to keep unauthorised unmanned drones from causing problems (source).

“What I find fascinating is that birds can hit the drone in such a way that they don’t get injured by the rotors,” said LeBaron the director of the organization’s Christmas Bird Count. “They seem to be whacking the drone right in the centre so they don’t get hit; they have incredible visual acuity and they can probably actually see the rotors.”

Also, French army uses trained eagles to catch enemy drones. In the southwest of the country, a special army unit has for months been training four golden eagles to spot drones and perform mid-air takedowns.

Phew, thank you all who made it to the end! 😀

If you're still interested, here is a link to amazing, detailed and illustrated article from National Geographic Magazine: Inside a Sheikh's Plan to Protect the World's Fastest Animal

And as I promised, below you can find links to my posts about my travel to the land of wild woods, bevers and wolfs, wild bees and falcons...

Amazing Saturday night in woods. Discovering Ukraine - Polissia
Discovering Ukraine. My trip to the North: Polissia (more photos inside)
Morning hours in Polissia
My second day in Polissia reserve and returning home (en / ua)
Polissia: afterword. 4 stories

Thank you so much for your attention and your support!

See you,
@zirochka